Team Blog Week 6: DollarShaveClub.com

I came across this advertisement on Wednesday night. It was for Dollarshaveclub.com, and it was hilarious. After watching it and looking up the company, I started to realize that the company has some potential.

You can watch their advert on their website (http://www.dollarshaveclub.com/), It cost around $4,500 to make and with over 1.6 million views it has gone viral in 3 days, giving them over 5000 orders.

WARNING: VIDEO CONTAINS SOME COLOURFUL LANGUAGE

What I like about the advertisement?

Funny

Honest, straightforward and genuine

Message hits the spot

All it took was a bit of creativity to make

Looked decent, yet cheap enough for me to make such a video

Why the Video went Viral?

The message hit the spot: Clearly they understood the needs of the customer and targeted their message to them directly.

People love a David vs Goliath story (small guy takes on the big guy). Dollar Shave Club brought up a point that big companies are spending excessively and passing the costs to the customers (bigger company=bigger overheads=cost passed on to customer). So in essence you are paying 5 times more for a $1 blade to cover the big boys overheads.

The video was made to seem that the common man ran the company and it was for the common man.

What about the Business?

This is not a regular model for the razor business. Normally you would purchase them at supermarkets, pharmacy or general stores. As you would not change the type or brand of blades you use often, they automated the process, such that you get your blades delivered to your doorstep monthly, taking the hassle out of forgetting to buy them.

Compared to the big named brands the pricing here is pretty low, $1 a month for 5 razors is really cheap. Now lets assume their quality is good then how come they are so cheap? One reason could be better sourcing, and the other is low overhead cost. It cost $4,500 for them to make the advertisement, it got viral immediately and there are over 1.6million views at the moment of this writing. They are also removing the middleman and sourcing their razors directly from manufacturers in China and Korea. It is nice, because the cost savings is passed on to the consumer, compared to the big brands.

Now that is disruption at its finest.

For the customer

The company sell subscriptions for razors, delivered monthly to your doorstep, so there is no need to go and make a purchase. They are targeting people who would like to change their razors often to have better shaves, instead of using the same blade for months on end.

I personally do not have use for the product, but I like the business model. A subscription based business model to automate a certain task for people. All they need is to make sure that their product is of good quality and they have a great business.

The reason for it being picked up by so many startup blogs, is that the advertisement clearly showed the company’s understanding of their customers needs, the market and their competitors.

The video above proves that it does not take much to have a great advertising campaign. You do not need a budget in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. All you need is to understand your market better, know the problems their facing and how you can make their lives better.

Once you understand your customers and market (including suppliers and competitors) thoroughly, you will be able to better word your advertisements and marketing, hitting the target audiences on the spot and grabbing their attention.

This video has proven that you do not need a massive budget to disrupt an industry. It’s time you got started too.

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